Hot and Cold
by clair beaubien
Summary: How Sam copes after getting his soul back. He'd never be able to do it without Dean.
1. Chapter 1

When I came out from my shower, Sam had finally gone to bed. If you could call it that. He was laying on his bed, dressed even to his boots, using his jacket as a blanket.

I knew that tactic. Hell is so hot and so cold that a thin blanket on a cold night is too much. And the night was cold and the room was cold, but I didn't cover a blanket over him. After hell, even a little warmth is oppressive and a little cool is refreshing and Sam was a little brittle even if he didn't think so.

Getting his soul back was good thing, it was, it is, it always will be.

But like every other good thing in our lives, it came at the expense of pain.

And Sam was in pain.

Even though he pretended he was fine.

I knew that too. The rehearsed casualness, the feigned indifference to hell, the bottle of Jack tucked inside the backpack. The Winchester version of 'don't ask me, because I won't tell you…'

I got into bed, and left one overbed light on, because I knew that waking up in the dark and quiet after hell could be terrifying. Was usually terrifying.

And I laid there and listened to Sam breathe.

There's not much I can't sleep through - earthquakes, hurricanes, dripping ceilings, pain, stitches, boring movies, stupid music, hunger, anger, snoring family members, whatever.

But I've always had a hard time sleeping through knowing that Sam was suffering. And he was suffering now. He could act tough and badass and 'alpha hunter', but that's all that it was - _acting_.

Yeah, he'd been that way while he was on soul-hiatus, but - _he had his soul back_, and he was being flooded with pain and guilt and fear and disorientation - _and pain -_ and nothing would get him over that or through it or out of it but time, strength, and determination.

And a big brother half sleeping with a light left on, keeping both eyes on him.

After awhile, I gave up laying down and sat up against the headboard. I shoved my pillows behind my back and flicked the TV on, turning the sound down to a dull murmur.

Sooner or later, Sam was going to wake up with a nighmare.

Sooner _and _later, I was going to be there.

The End.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N (and shameless self-promotion): my second story "A Scatter of Bones" (which won an honorable mention in the 2005 Writers Digest Best Short Story contest) is now available on Amazon. I've placed a link to it on my blog. The link to _that_ is on my homepage on this website.

* * *

Suddenly, Sam was awake, eye level with a beige blanket that had a single microscopic blue thread somehow threaded into it, just where he was staring. That was weird. He stared at it awhile. It was weird and he stared at it awhile, because it was white and flat and not red and bubbling, and it didn't move and it didn't change and it didn't hurt.

Nothing hurt.

That was weird.

Other senses came online slowly. Since getting his soul back, fifteen days before, waking up was a prolonged, complicated matter. He never just woke up and knew where he was. It was always a slow crawl into reality. Even now, he became aware of himself and his surroundings slowly. His mouth was dry and his lips were stuck to his teeth. He was warm. He wasn't in the dark. He wasn't in pain.

_He wasn't alone._

Voices behind him put him on alert, listening for the words and inflection and intonation that would tell him when to start screaming. He listened, he listened hard, not breathing, not moving, not even looking at that thin blue thread anymore.

He listened.

He heard –

_The news? _

Someone was watching TV?

_He wasn't alone. _

The pieces kept tumbling into place. This was a motel. And if he was in a motel, he wasn't in hell. He was in bed. Dreaming things he couldn't remember. Waking up to light and not dark, to mild warmth and not burning cold, to familiar sounds and not familiar horror.

When he turned over, if he turned over, Dean would be behind him, on the next bed. Awake and watching TV so Sam wouldn't wake up alone in the middle of the night. Because Dean knew Sam _would _wake up in the middle of the night.

_Of course Dean knew. _

Sam relaxed against the bed, trying to bring that blue thread back into focus. He wanted to look at it again because it wasn't weird. It didn't do anything but just _be_ a blue thread. He wanted to stare at it until everything else was as steady as it was.

Then maybe he could turn over, just to be sure it _was_ Dean behind him.

But he had to wait until everything was steady. Sometimes, when he turned too fast, sometimes grisly images of abiding horror flared up at the edges of his vision, threatening to spike his sanity to let it drain out in thick rivulets. Those were the times that the bottle of whiskey couldn't be close enough.

Not that he drank to forget all those memories that he couldn't quite wrap his hands around. There wasn't enough alcohol in the world to make him forget things he couldn't remember. He didn't drink to forget, hHe drank to _not care_. That was easy enough to come by.

"Y'okay?"

The voice so suddenly so close behind Sam made him reach for the far side of the bed to drag himself away from the horror that was about to dig in and rip out and leave him bloody and ragged and agonized and alone and –

"_Sam – it's okay. It's okay. It's me. Just me."_

It was a voice. No one touched him, nothing hurt him. It was just a voice. _Dean's voice. _Dean was talking to him but he wasn't touching him. Dean knew better than to touch him without asking first.

_Of course Dean knew._

"_Dean_?" Sam dared to ask without looking back. His lips were dry and his tongue was cardboard and his voice was harsh.

"Yeah, Sammy. It's me. You want some water?"

"Um – yeah – thanks." Still, Sam didn't turn over. Once he was fully awake, he'd be okay. Until then, he wouldn't let go of the hold he had on the bedding, he couldn't let go of the fear that he was about to be splintered and butchered and fileted again.

But all that happened was Dean saying, "_Okay, I'm going to set it next to you,_" and then he laid a bottle of water on the mattress in front of Sam. He didn't touch Sam while he did that, he made sure the bottle didn't touch Sam, he didn't sit on the mattress. He just reached over Sam to set the bottle down and then went back to sitting on his own bed and gave Sam the time he needed to get to the point of simply being able to sit up and drink a bottle of water.

"Thanks." Sam said again, and pushed himself up and sitting with his legs over the side of the bed, still – _still_ – facing away from Dean.

"You bet."

As Sam twisted the cap off the water and drank down the whole bottle in a few swallows, his jacket slipped off his shoulders and slid off the bed. He'd been using it as a blanket, but the room wasn't that warm, or that cold, either. Dean knew that extremes of any kind - temperature, noise, touch - were too much for Sam. So, coffee was never hot, water was never cold, music was never loud, lights were never too bright, motel rooms were never completely quiet or completely dark, Dean never let anyone get within arm's length of Sam and he never _ever_ touched Sam without first being absolutely sure that Sam knew what was about to happen.

_Of course Dean knew._

"You're still awake?" Sam asked when the water was gone and a bleary look at his watch told him it was nearly three a.m. He didn't look at Dean.

"You know I can't get enough of boring TV."

That was so not-funny, it hurt. It was _supposed_ to be funny, but it only meant that Dean was awake because Sam was awake. Because he'd known that Sam would _be_ awake at some point during the night, and he'd made sure to fall asleep only deep enough that he'd wake up when Sam did.

Slowly, steeling himself against horrors he couldn't actually remember but couldn't really forget, slowly Sam turned so he could sit with his back against the headboard and his legs stretched out on the mattress.

"So, what's on?" He asked. He could only glance at Dean.

"BBC news. After this, Poirot. I can't wait."

Sam managed a breath of amusement at the thought of Dean watching Poirot. He set the empty water bottle on the bedside table and scrubbed his eyes.

"There's gotta be something better on."

"No, not really." Dean said it bright and perky, like there really wasn't anything he'd rather be watching. But all it meant was that Dean knew there wasn't anything else to watch that wouldn't shake Sam's stability.

_Of course Dean knew._

"There's those chocolate shake things on the cupboard, if you want one." Dean said. "Since you already pretty much drank you dinner last night."

"Um - I don't know. It's - I don't know." Food, textures of food, sometimes just the _thought_ of food could make Sam sick. Those cans of breakfast shakes were very nearly the only food he could tolerate. But he wasn't awake enough yet to know if could tolerate it right now.

"Well, it's there if you want it." Dean said. He wouldn't push it on Sam. He'd just let him know it was there, if he wanted it, when he could tolerate it. He'd get it for Sam, if Sam asked him to. He'd move slowly, talking to keep Sam focused on what he was doing, pop open a can and set it on the bedside table for Sam to pick up when he wanted it. He knew not to rush Sam or crowd him.

_Of course Dean knew._

Sam rubbed his eyes again and flexed his feet to stretch his legs and watched the art deco opening credits of Poirot.

"You want one?" He asked Dean when the TV murder had taken place. He even looked at Dean when he asked it, and didn't look away when Dean turned to him.

"Sure, sounds good. Thanks."

Sam took a deep breath and got out of bed on the side closest to Dean, but Dean didn't look at him, not even a glance out of the corner of his eye. So Sam could stand there a few long seconds, giving a look around the room before he crossed to the cupboard.

The curtains were pulled shut. There was salt in front of the door, and a chair wedged under the knob, the light was on in the bathroom. Nobody was looking in or coming in, no dark shadows taunted him. All that effort Dean gave, just so Sam could feel safe walking twelve feet across the motel room.

After one more scan around, Sam headed to the kitchen wall. There were a couple of boxes of the breakfast shakes on the cupboard and a couple of huge plastic glasses that Dean had picked up at a garage sale.

One glass held two of the shakes with room to spare. Sam filled one up for himself and popped a single can for Dean. He turned, and scanned the room again, and took one step.

The curtains were pulled shut, there was salt in front of the door - and the middle of the room suddenly loomed wide and dangerous and Sam couldn't move.

"Um - _Dean_?"

Dean took a casual look over.

"Yeah?"

And when Dean met Sam's eyes, it was like the room stopped spinning.

"I - uh - you want a glass with this?"

It was a transparent dodge. Sam needed Dean to come closer so he'd feel safe crossing back again, only there was no way he was saying that to Dean.

"No, thanks. I can drink it straight up. Hey - did I leave that newspaper clipping on the table?"

Dean slid off the bed and moved slowly toward the table, looking for a piece of paper that Sam knew didn't exist.

As he came closer though, Sam felt safe enough to cross back over to the beds. He set the can for Dean on the bedside table and sat himself on the edge of his bed.

"Nope, guess I left it in my duffel." Dean said, after a cursory look at the table. He came back to his bed, and sat nearly straight across from Sam, because he knew Sam was okay with sitting close together, just like he'd known Sam needed him close to be able to walk to the beds.

_Of course Dean knew._

"So - how're you doing, Sammy?"

_Empty,_ Sam thought; it was the first thing that came to his mind. He didn't want to say that to Dean, though. He didn't want Dean to worry. At least not any more than he was worried already. But some deeper part of him was lost or missing or hiding. Sam felt _empty_.

"It comes back after awhile." Dean said into Sam's silence.

"What does?"

"_Being who you remember."_

And that was it, wasn't it?

Sam drank a few swallows of his chocolate feast, and Dean drank some of his own. Poirot was forgotten for now.

"It didn't take _you _this long." Sam said.

Dean didn't answer immediately. Sometimes words that came too soon, too fast, especially words of hell, sometimes those words went right by Sam.

Dean knew that.

_Of course Dean knew._

"There's more of you to come back." Dean did finally answer. He didn't say that with a smirk; he wasn't talking about Sam's physical size.

"There's no more of me than there is of you. I'm not any more complicated than you are."

"Yes, you are. Way more complicated than I am. And I wasn't in hell as long."

"That just means there's a bigger hole inside of me."

There was another pause, and when Dean did the 'tilt head down to look in Sam's eyes' head tilt, Sam realized his own eyes were fixed on his white knuckles and the grip he had on the big, blue, plastic glass. And when Dean didn't say anything, and not just to give Sam time, Sam raised his eyes to meet Dean's.

"It'll come back, Sam. We won't push it. It'll come back."

Sam drank some more chocolate shake and his mouth didn't feel so dry, and his nerves didn't feel so shaky.

He was pretty sure it wasn't the chocolate breakfast shake making him feel better.

"I know. I know it will."

He drained his big, blue, plastic glass and set it on the bedside table.

"You should go back to sleep now." Dean said.

"There's a blue thread on my blanket." Sam told him, more just to say it than as a complaint. Still, he saw the shift in Dean's shoulders.

"_I'll get rid of it." _

The firm authority and no-nonsense confidence in his voice made Sam smile.

"It's a thread, Dean, not a bully." What did people do who didn't have a big brother? "_Thanks, though_. I think I'll just name it, and keep it as a pet."

Dean laughed and Sam didn't even flinch.

"Bed, Sam. Boots off and go to bed. Your eyes are blacker than the Impala."

"Yeah, okay." Sam agreed, on a sigh. He bent down to pull his boots off, then straightened himself out on the bed. After a few minutes, he turned onto his side and brought that blue thread back into focus. With that minute molecule of steadiness in view, he let his eyes drift closed.

"Sam?"

"Hmmm?"

"It's just me, okay?"

"Hmm? Yeah, okay…"

And Sam felt his jacket being laid over his shoulders. It warmed him, and not just physically. He hadn't realized he was a little cold. But Dean knew.

_Of course Dean knew._

The End


	3. Chapter 3

Yep, some things even a hundred years in hell can't change. Specifically – get enough food in Sam's stomach, and he'll sleep through the night. He drank a quart of that chocolate meal-in-a-glass stuff and it steadied his nerves enough that we had an actual conversation, with eye contact and everything, then he laid down and fell asleep and slept straight through almost six hours.

I was all the way awake a couple of hours before Sam started his slow process of waking up and catching up. His breathing changed, from slow and shallow to fast and broken. His posture changed from stretched out to freaked out with tight shoulders and curled fists.

Sam was awake and scared and I couldn't go to him without scaring him even more. I hated that. If I so much as cleared my throat before he was fully awake and oriented it could send him into a panic attack that would take twice as long to recover from as just waking up.

So I had to wait, until Sam was ready for me to approach him.

It took less time each time for him to fully come around. More or less, less time each time. If he woke up naturally, that is. From a sound sleep, in a warm bed, it was usually only a few minutes for Sammy to become fully functioning again. If he woke up from a nightmare though, all bets were off.

This seemed to be a good waking, fortunately. His breathing evened out, his body stretched out, after a few minutes he turned over and sat up and looked over at me.

"Hey."

"Hey." I answered back, trying hard to not sound as happy as I was that he was OK as quick as he was.

"What time is it?"

"Going on ten, I guess."

He nodded up and covered a yawn and rolled himself out of bed to head to the bathroom. Things were looking good. We might even be able to get breakfast, sitting down in an actual restaurant and not just drive-thru. That would be good for Sam, he could get real food in a real restaurant which would be good for his blood sugar which would be good for his emotional stability.

Then from outside our room there was the sound of screeching tires and blasting horns and slamming fenders and in four long steps I was at the bathroom door. I didn't bother knocking, that would only add to the noise that would be ricocheting in Sam's head right now.

I turned the knob and opened the door slowly.

"Sam? It's me, okay? It's just me."

_"Dean?"_

He sounded scared and hopeful and not too far gone.

"Yeah, Sammy. It's me, I'm coming in. Okay?"

"Yeah? Dean? I think I dropped my toothbrush."

"Okay. That's okay. We can find it."

I pushed the bathroom door open all the way. Sam was sitting on the edge of the tub, hunched over, eyes squeezed shut. He was gripping the toothpaste in one hand and his toothbrush in the other and his breath was coming hard and fast.

"Sammy? How're you doing?"

He lifted his head and turned toward me. He blinked a few times like he was creating his answer. He shrugged a shoulder up toward the tiny window.

"I just - I just - it - it startled me."

"Yeah, I think somebody had a fender bender out there. You okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. I just - I need my toothbrush."

Well, he had his toothbrush right there in his hand. But I wasn't going to be the one to bluntly point that out to him. Not with the way he was looking at me like I had all the answers.

"Okay, here. Let's get this taken care of. Can you stand up?"

He looked up at me like he didn't realize that he _wasn't_ standing up.

"Yeah?" He answered like he wasn't sure that was the right answer. But then he shook his head like he was tossing a thought out of the way. "Yeah. Yeah, I can stand up." And he got to his feet and stood up nearly completely straight and moved to stand in front of the sink and mirror.

"Okay?" I asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. This is okay."

He lifted both hands and looked at them like he was cataloguing what he held in them.

"I have my toothbrush." He said it like I didn't know he'd had it in his hand the whole time.

"Good." I answered, like I hadn't known he had it in his hand the whole time. "You got it from here? You want me to hang around?"

"Uh – no. No, I'm okay. I – yeah, no. I can do this."

Right. He was shaking like he was freezing and he could barely get the toothpaste on the toothbrush.

But he said he could do it, and I had to believe him, even if I _didn't_ believe him.

"All right. I'm just right outside the door, okay?"

He had the toothbrush in his mouth by then, so he nodded and I walked back out into the main part of our motel room.

I just – God, I just wanted to grab Sammy and make everything right for him again. Put the damn wall back up – and I worked construction, I _know_ how to put a damn wall up. Take away his shame. Evaporate his guilt. Derail his litany of _'what did I do, who did I hurt, when did it happen, where did I go after that, and how can I ever make up for it_?'

But all I could do was pack up most of our stuff, duffel and backpack, get ready to get on the road again, and hope the next place we stopped had better drivers in the parking lot.

I kept an eye on the bathroom door. In a few minutes, Sam appeared in the doorway, shaving kit under his arm, looking around the room for hidden threats and obvious pitfalls.

When he finally saw me and relaxed a little bit, I knew I could talk to him without startling him. Without terrifying him.

"How're you doing, Sammy?"

"I'm good. I'm okay. I – I'm good."

He spied his backpack on his bed and headed that way. I'd packed up most of his stuff, but I couldn't pack it all because if he didn't have something concrete to focus on, he'd go off track again. So I'd left out a t-shirt and book and he had his shaving kit to put away. Having something straightforward and easy to do was good for him.

I'd left out a few things of my own to put away, so for a few minutes we finished packing up. I held back so that Sam finished first, so that after he zipped up his backpack, he watched me finish up, keeping close track of my movements.

"So, how would you like to do breakfast?" I asked him, while I was still packing. If his attention was focused on what I was doing, it wasn't unfocused on anything else.

"You want to go someplace." He said it and sounded disappointed and I knew it was disappointment in himself because he wasn't sure he could do that for me.

"Whatever you want." I told him and I meant it. "We've got the chocolate stuff. We can do drive-thru. We can do anything you want."

"What do you want to do?"

_I want to make you all better. I want to keep everything and everyone from scaring you. I want to feel like I can still actually take care of you._

"Why don't we drive-thru somewhere."

There was more I could've said, that drive-thru would get us on the road sooner, or we could find a quiet spot to stop and eat, but short sentences were better. One expressed idea at a time was better. Sam needed to think about one thing at a time.

My super-smart, does the NY Time crossword in ink, memory like a steel trap, can-think-about-five-things-at-once little brother, right now needed to be able to process simple things one simple thing at a time.

And he processed that one simple thought while I packed up my final t-shirt and pair of socks.

"No." He finally said. And he said it with some conviction. OK, whatever. The chocolate shakey stuff was bearable. Whatever Sammy needed to keep making progress, I was up for it.

But that's not what he'd decided.

"No." He said it again and looked up from watching my hands to looking in my eyes. "We'll go someplace. I can do it. I'm – I'm – I can do it."

He stood up straighter and squared his shoulders and still had the look of somebody doing something he didn't want to have to do but by God he was _going_ to do it. He slung his pack over his shoulder in one smooth movement and took a deep breath, and stood waiting like he was only waiting for me to get a move on.

"Okay."

He said he could do it, and I had to believe him, even if I _didn't_ believe him.

I zipped my duffel and looked around for anything left behind and half turned to the door, keeping an eye on Sam to see how he was keeping up. He still looked half-puzzled and half-worried, looking at the door like he expected hell to be waiting behind it.

Then his eyebrows pulled together before he rolled his eyes like he'd just given himself a '_duh'_ rebuke. He marched across the room, and only hesitated a split second before he grabbed the doorknob and flung the door open and marched himself right outside to the car.

Look out world, Sammy Winchester, the bravest man I knew, was on his way back.

Some things even a hundred years in hell can't change forever.


End file.
